Recent rains have helped, but not enough

Thursday

Sep 6, 2012 at 11:00 AM

†By James Jordan

Newton Kansan

†Recent rain and relatively cooler temperatures have brought some?relief, but it has not made much of a dent in the drought.?Fire danger is still high, Harvey County Emergency Management?coordinator Lon Buller said.?"The rain was helpful. If we continue to get heat and if there is much?wind, it wonít take long to get us right back where we were. People?still need to be careful," he said.?Harvey County extension agent Scott Eckert said the rains might help a?little with water bills, but wonít help plants enough.?Most people who are gardening water their gardens, if not their yards.?"A lot of people are growing melons and sweet potatoes," he said. "The?potatoes might be a little early. People can get a late crop of?tomatoes if they had moisture in August."?Eckert added that people can put in a fall garden, and now with the?weather being not as hot and dry, a good crop could be grown.?"People can put in spinach, lettuce or carrots. Now would be a good?time," he said.?He said they are also having a good year over at the Sharing Garden, a?garden grown by local master gardeners and the produce is given to the?Salvation Army.?"We do have a very good group of master gardeners," he said of the group.?So far this summer they have grown 3,000 pounds of produce and still?have the sweet potato crop to harvest.?They average around 3,200 pounds and the record since 2000 was 4,300?pounds. It might not be a record year, but it should come out above?average, he said.?Eckert said more rain is still needed.?Buller said conditions are still very dry, or could become very dry?with much wind.?"Something people donít realize is, you can have mud and the wind can?dry out a field fast. It would not take much to get a fire started?with the dry grass going dormant," he said.?He said there have not been as many fires lately, but still cautioned?people to be careful.?The Newton area has had about 19.09 inches of precipitation so far; by this time Newton should have had about 20.92 inches.